DEATH OF A FRIENDSHIP - Harry Guest Poems

DEATH OF A FRIENDSHIPI mourn, now that your house containssuch fractured shadows.This wine you’ve handed metastes sour. I joke and you do not laugh.When you speak, assuming my approval,I stare into discoloureddepths of my glass, longingto get away.

Rain drives against your walls. The fewshrubs you have planted shrink in the cold.Where there was amity, questionsecho between us. Tufts of darklilac branching from tall vases shedminute dry flowers like grieffor a lost fragrance, leaveon the smooth piano scattered omensneither of us can read.

The past is empty of romance,its summers flecked with heartbreakand its negatives destroyed-.But weren’t there moments whenthe blue sea glittered, when the lithecurve of a diver forged anotherlink between wave and cloud?I wonder, though, in fearwere those young grinning faces alwaysplague-marred, was the fun a lie,were dreams we’ve jettisonedmere husks about this dirt,dislike? One fiction mayhave replaced another forwherever I look with you I find,instead of light, a slyness.

We could not name the truth. What used to braglies in your cupboard under lock and key.You care no morefor angels or the underdog,translating all the terms we usedinto intolerance. Your worldnow clusters roundthe emulation of the rich.

I can’t feel glad about old timesbecause I am afraidthat what I see here I suspected thenbut shunned the knowing.The tarnish of this has rubbed off on me.The years we shared look counterfeit. If so,more than affection died today.What hurts perhaps the mostis that in you as in a mirror showsnot only what I could have beenbut what I was or am.